


Paradise Lost

by Tinyshot



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 08:18:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20060908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinyshot/pseuds/Tinyshot
Summary: As her soul heals, Rejoined with one of her shards, memories of the past come flooding in.





	Paradise Lost

“Fool! Who are you? No one. Nothing.”

“You don’t know when to quit!”

He grits his teeth. The pain will pass. Bruises will heal.

Pride will not.

He grasps blindly for his mask, only finding sharp shattered pieces. A foot stomps over his hand, and he cries out in pain, feeling the edges slicing his skin. Tears well up in his eyes as he tries to wiggle his way out. He grits his teeth and looks up at his assailants. They all are so big and tall compared to him.

“Give it back! It’s mine!”

“Oh look, he’s crying!”

“What an ugly mug.”

“Shouldn’t have broken his mask. Now we all have to look at it.”

His face burns with anger and shame and he hangs his head. With his free hand, he tries to pull the hood over his head. Revealing one's face is something that is only done with family and close friends.

The boy stepping on his hand twists his foot, making him cry out once again, but he bites his lip hard to muffle the sound.

“You’re nothing!”

“What should we do with this imprint?”

“Throw it into the trench!”

His imprint. His proudest creation yet. He had just won the contest of youth architectons with it. He was so happy but a few minutes ago until he turned into this alley on the way back home…

“Trench!”

“Trench! Trench! Trench!”

“_ Hey!! _”

A sharp voice, a girl’s voice, cuts through the ruckus like a blade. He looks up, and through the haze of tears, he sees another figure, lithe and tall. She looks to be a few years older, and she is tall enough to look the biggest bully square in the eye.

“Why don’t you try to take on someone your size!”

She throws her hand forward and unleashes a wave of shining light that makes the boys stumble and shield their eyes. But it is merely a distraction.

Within moments, she is upon them, a crystalline sword materializing in her hand from a hidden imprint. She lays into them with fierce blows, swinging hard and aiming for tender spots.

Not even a minute later the bullies run away, screaming and crying, their robes in tatters and their masks shattered pieces on the ground.

He watches, mesmerized. Taking a deep breath, she stops and looks down at him, releasing her focus on the weapon. It melts back into the ambient aether. He covers his face from her with the palm of his uninjured hand.

“Are you alright? Did they hurt you?”

She is kneeling beside him. Her mask is a different shape and just a bit more elaborate than his, sharper and more angular, a single blue swirl curling around the left eye. It marks her as a praelia militant, fourth rank. A weaver of battle, a future warrior and peacekeeper. That would make her… about three years his senior?

It seems her chosen role will suit her well.

From behind his fingers, he can see her eyes through the mask, concerned and warm. They have the most amazing hue to them. He immediately turns bright red.

“Y-yes. Thank you.”

She extends her hand to him, smiling. He takes it, and a jolt of… _ something _goes through him. She pulls him to his feet. She looks down at the shattered remains of his mask and hums under her breath.

He turns away, too ashamed to say anything. A ripping sound makes him throw a quick glance over his shoulder.

She tore a wide strip of cloth from the bottom of her robes and extends it to him. To cover his face on the way home, he realizes with a start. He grabs it, still flushed with embarrassment. He should have thought about that himself. Now she ruined her own robe. He could have…

“Is that yours?”

She is holding his project. He nods frantically, still trying to tie the cloth in a way that would cover his bare face.

She hands him his creation with a warm, reassuring smile.

“It’s beautiful… architecton.”

She opens her eyes. Emet-Selch is looking at her with wide, unbelieving eyes. As if seeing a ghost.

“No... It can't be…”

She climbs to her feet, unsteadily at first but with power flowing back into her body and soul with every passing heartbeat.

“Bah, a trick of the light. You are a broken husk, nothing more.”

Something stirs within her.

_ You’re lying. I always know when you’re lying. _

Ardbert is no more. She knows he is gone forever, and yet… there is a presence within her. Reassuring, warming, friendly.

He is with her. If Hythlodaeus is to be believed, they were once the same soul… and she knows it for certain now. They are one now, and he will always be with her.

She can still feel the blinding, burning Light within her, but now, with their combined strength, they are enough to contain it. She is enough.

They have Rejoined themselves, of their own volition. Two becoming one, stronger and ever closer to the power of the unsundered Paragons.

Maybe that’s why she was able to glimpse the vision of Emet-Selch’s past with her gift. That was an important moment for him, but why?

She opens her mouth to speak, and

“You’re going to live in Amaurot?”

“Yes! My mother got a position at the Bureau of Evocation, and we’re leaving in two weeks!”

“So soon…”

He tries to leave the disappointment out of his voice, but she can tell it’s there. Her smile dims, and she feels herself saddening with him.

“I’m sorry, Hades. I really am. But… I’m sure we’ll see each other again!!”

She ruffles his hair, his head is just barely reaching her shoulder. He slouches forward, looking down.

“Promise you will write?” He sounds so hopeless.

“I promise.” She will, she has to.

His hands ball up in fists and he pushes her away forcefully, making her stumble backward.

”You’re lying! You’ll just… you’ll just go and leave like everyone else, and forget I ever existed!”

He runs away, hastily pulling his hood up. For a moment she thinks about going after him, but… there is so much to do before they leave.

But she will write. She made a promise.

Memories tumbling into her head, flooding her mind. Memories not her own and yet so familiar. Her voice sounds in them, though not her own. Emotions, hers and not hers. _ Pain _.

Who is this boy? Why is it so important?

Her heart quails, her chest gripped in a vice. But she stands up straighter and looks the Ascian straight in the eye. He who at times almost seemed to be her friend. He who at times seemed to understand her. It hurts so much... much more than it should.

Her voice rings out through the void.

“I challenge you, Emet-Selch.”

He makes a flippant, theatrical gesture, as is his style. _ As was always his style. _

“Very well. Let us proceed to your final judgment…”

He extends an elegantly gloved hand to her, a glint of madness and desperation in the golden eyes.

“The victor shall write the tale, and the vanquished become its villain!”

She still looks at him, barely blinking, accepting the challenge thrown back at her. Her heart is twisting itself into knots, threatening to pull itself apart.

“But come! Let us cast aside titles and pretense, and reveal our true faces to one another!”

Emet-Selch is a title, she recalls him saying. It means “the Architect”. Foremost of the Ancients, their ruler and most ingenious inventor.

“I am Hades! He who shall awaken our brethren from their dark slumber!”

Her heart stops, breath catching in her throat. Her voice is but a small squeak when it comes out of her constricted larynx.

“Hades?..”

Darkness pouring out of him overtakes her.

She is strolling down the sparsely lit street towards the postal office, licking the envelope sealed. In the past seven years, she never stopped writing. At first, he wouldn’t answer, the proud fool. But she continued to put her pen to the paper, and stubbornly refused to accept defeat. Eventually, he started writing back. At first, it was barely a page, covered in his untidy, spidery handwriting. He was still guarded. He was convinced she would stop writing soon.

She didn’t.

Now every few days or so, she gets a plump envelope on her doorstep, filled with pages and pages of his scribbles. His handwriting has never gotten better, but she has long learned to read it as if it were her own.

He is making a lot of progress in his discipline. He got another award as a creator. He is thinking about attending the Lyceum in the distant Laversale where he is being offered a scholarship. She wrote back that she is happy and proud of him.

She wrote of her promotion to a sub-commander of the 5th squadron. The minutiae of her daily life, funny stories from her job. People she met, people she helped, people she caught… those she had saved, and those she didn’t.

She fears he might get tired of her boring life. His was a rising star of metaphysics, his mind as sharp as a blade, as quick as an arrow.

She reaches the post box and drops the envelope through the slit. A sigh escapes her, and she leans her forehead against the wall. Now she is the one who feels like she is about to be abandoned. Once he moves on with his life, away from the small town where they both were born and into the big city, he will forget to write to her, surely...

“You sound so sad. Are you breaking up with me?”

This voice… teasing, mirthful, with a capricious and theatrical undertone. It’s deeper, having broken during their time apart, but she recognizes it in a heartbeat. She whirls around, her robes flapping, trying to catch up with her sudden movement.

“H-Hades?”

A smug smile spreads beneath his half-mask at her instant recognition. His mask! It’s fully black, which means…

“You… you’re an Archon?”

“The youngest in the last millennia, or so I am told.” He is trying to feign nonchalance with an overexaggerated shrug but his smile is radiant, as are his eyes, which she can see through the slits of his mask.

He gasps and stumbles as she barrels into him, giving him a fierce hug. They are now the same height, which shocks her for a brief moment. But of course, it has been years since she saw him. Somehow, in her mind, he was still the same little boy as he was when she left their hometown.

He taps on her shoulder and she realizes that his mouth is twisting in discomfort. She stops squeezing him so tightly, and he lets out a sigh of relief. He is still built like a scholar, which is hardly surprising. He was always a bookish type, loathing anything _ manual _. Always thinking up labor-saving devices to not do anything himself, which usually resulted in much more work for him when it didn't turn out the way he expected and he started adding and improving the original design…

“But when?” She finds herself pouting at him. “You didn’t tell me about that! It’s so important!”

He grins sheepishly.

“I thought I’d be a surprise. I was offered a position less than a week ago, and that meant I’d come to live in Amaurot… and, well...”

He looks straight into her eyes, and she is amazed at the intensity of his gaze.

“It was all I ever wanted.”

Her eyes are weeping, even as her weapon pierces Emet-Selch’s flesh again and again. It didn’t have to end this way. None of it had to end this way. 

_ Where did it all go so wrong? _

She barely dodges a massive swipe he makes, the haze of tears over her eyes making it hard to see. The eerie masks glaring at her. Judging her. Accusing her. Immense guilt twists a dull knife in her chest.

_ It’s my fault. It’s our fault. But we only wanted to save… _

"Ridiculous!"

Hades is pacing back and forth through her room, agitated beyond belief.

Sitting in the plush armchair, she pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly. Watching him going to and fro, finding it so odd she forgets to feel miserable.

"Perhaps it's for the best."

Hades flicks his hand in frustration and finally stops in front of her.

"How could the idiot just… _ dump _ you?! Didn't the bastard realize what he had?!"

He runs a gloved hand through his messy bob. With a start, she notices for the first time that there are grey strands woven into the dark of his hair. But he is so much younger than she is. Or… is he? When they were children, the difference was so painfully obvious, but as they reached adulthood, four winters stopped mattering all that much.

She shrugs.

"Whatever do you mean by that… I'm just, well. Little old me. I guess he found someone… different. He could never accept that I would put the good of those in need over everything and everyone… including him."

"What a fool..."

Hades shakes his head. He is still seething with anger. She should feel that same anger, but for some reason, she doesn't.

"... that is the most beautiful thing about you."

She blinks.

With a sudden movement, he discards his mask of office, sending it flying into the corner of the room. She stares at his face, drinking in the features for the first time.

A shadow of self-conscious doubt passes over him, and he slouches just a bit, as he does when he is unsure, defensive.

"If it were me in his place, I'd never do anything that could possibly upset you…"

Her eyes widen. Pieces snapping into place. How could she be so ignorant all those years, her memory of him as a sulky, gangly boy blinding her?

"And… and how often do you wish you were in his place?" She prods him, a sly smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Hades lets out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head theatrically. But it is just an act, and she notices how his eyes dart to the side before locking onto hers.

"More often than I care to admit…"

Her hands tighten on her knees, grabbing handfuls of her robes. The silence stretches. But she won't let him just leave it at that.

"If you have something to say, say it."

That is the moment where one can sense different futures. Different fates. A choice once made leading into a different tomorrow.

He falls to his knees, bringing their faces level.

"Persephone… I…"

He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut.

"For as long as I've known you, you were a shining light. I could only watch when you always act. Wishing I was as wise and brave and strong as you are."

His hand goes to touch hers, but he catches himself, pulling it back. Pain flashes across his face as he stops himself.

"You were ever my inspiration. My muse. Your smile lights the room, your laughter is the most beautiful music in the world…"

She toys with the edge of her mask, and his eyes follow the movement of her fingers. There is… longing. Hunger. He has never really seen her face. Not once in all those years they've known each other.

"I would never understand those who do not see how special and unique you are. How precious and unbelievable. I want to scream and curse at the fool who left you that he doesn't understand what a gift he has been given, and yet a part of me can't help but feel relieved and happy. I have ever been a poor friend to you, I fear."

She watches him intently, and he wilts under her gaze. His voice drops to barely a whisper.

"As long as I can be near you, I am content. Being your friend has been the best thing that ever happened to me in my wretched life. I wouldn't expect anything more."

"Hades…"

"I think you are the most perfect being on this star. Every time I am in your presence I thank the fates for letting me be a part of your life. And I hope you let me continue…"

"Hades."

He winces. He spoke… expecting to be rejected? He is so vulnerable, laying his soul bare to her, expecting, waiting to be hurt.

She gently lays her hand on his cheek. He doesn't move, only closing his eyes. He is afraid. By the stars, he is so afraid, and yet he is as long-winded as ever. In so many words he has been trying to say what she already figured out.

She smiles, her thumb running over his cheekbone.

"I love you too."

His eyes snap open, wide and bewildered.

"You… you do?"

She pulls off her mask with the other hand. Hades sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes roaming over her features. He starts to lean forward, his breath tickling her lips, but gentle yet firm pressure of her palm on his chest stops him.

She grins.

"Say it too."

"Uh… but…"

She gives him a _ look _.

"Hades, you've been beating around the bush for ten minutes with you monologue, but you still haven't said the words."

He gives her a shy laugh, blush creeping up his slender neck and prominent ears.

"I love you, Persephone. More than anything in the world."

She taps her curving lips with a finger.

"Kiss me."

"I… will… not… yield..."

Darkness is closing in. The masks of Emet-Selch's people… _ her people _…

She can't stop the flood of memories flooding her mind. Her very soul, broken and healed, resonates with his pain.

"What of this anguish that yet burns in my breast after the passing of eons?"

He stares at her, mouth gaping. She tilts her head to the side, smirking, and repeats her question. Her statement. Her hope.

"Marry me."

"I… uh. Um. Isn't… wasn't I the one who is supposed to ask?"

She sticks her tongue out, winking.

"You're just too busy with all the _ ruling _ . It would have taken you _ ages _ to come to a conclusion, and I don't have that much time. I'm a busy person, and so are you. So I thought I’d cut to the chase."

He coughs, smoothing down his hair in a bid to get some time to gather his wits. A white streak running by his face suits him. She smiles. He has grown into himself, finally comfortable in his own body. She supposed, her constant reminding over the past years that she loves him the way he is helped.

“Isn’t this an… inopportune time?”

“Isn't it always?”

He sighs, a smile finally appearing on his weary face. He works too hard, there are shadows under his deep-set golden eyes. His voice is low and trembling with emotions when he speaks.

“It would be my dream to join my soul with yours.”

He looks lost for a second. Twisting his hands nervously.

“I, uh. Didn’t expect that. Of course. Um… I never thought… So, I don’t… I don’t have…”

The silver-tongued demagogue, the terror of the Oratorium for anyone who dared challenge his point would find himself defeated, is at a loss for words. Stumbling over himself, unable to finish a thought. She giggles. Hythlodaetus will die of laughter when she tells him of this reaction.

“What would you do without me.” A corner of her mouth is curving up in a smug smirk. She reaches into her sleeve and produces two water crystals. Two imprints. She catches his eye and nods.

Focusing her mind on the aether locked within them, she thinks about the two of them. Of the future they will have together. She feels that he is doing the same.

The aether shifts, changes, responding to their mind and mood. Changing the original idea of design, molding it to fit the two of them.

Two golden cuffs lay on her palm where the crystals have been. Simple yet elegant, each with a single lustrous pearl set in them. Hades lets out a quiet sigh, and she realizes that she too has been holding her breath.

“It’s perfect.”

She picks up the left earring and reaches to him. He tilts and turns his head towards her to make it easier for her to fit it around his earlobe. Then, he does the same with the remaining earring, attaching it to her right ear with what could only be described as reverence.

He presses his forehead to hers, eyes closed.

“You were planning this.”

She chuckles.

“No, I was just carrying the engagement imprints around. You mean, you don’t? How rude.”

He laughs, embracing her tightly.

“I love you… forever and ever, and nothing in the world would change that.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

She focuses all the light in her soul, all the imbalance and power that nearly consumed her into her hand. It shines with the radiance of a dying star. A blade of light… no, an axe, Ardbert’s axe, is forming in her hand, called forth from her mind.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me!”

She raises her head proudly, straightening up, drawing herself to her full height. Her back aches at the motion, but she ignores the pain. It’s nothing compared to the raging storm within her soul.

“You are not my master, _ Emet-Selch _.”

He winces at her use of his title. The atrium falls silent with the citizens staring the two red-masked Paragons, mouths gaping. She would have heard a pin drop.

“Your plan is madness.”

“It’s the only one we have!” He cuts the air with his arm, his darkened face looking sinister. “The only one that would work!”

“You have never been this close-minded before!”

“Look around you!” He howls, pointing at the window. The reddened skies look ravenous. Even now she can feel the tremors of the ground beneath them. “We have no time! No other choice!”

He rubs his temples. His mouth is a set line.

“If we channel all the hopes of our people into this one being, it will work. It has to work. It will be our salvation!”

She shakes her head.

“No. It is foolish. And you are far too smart not to know that.”

“Then what else would you have me do, Persephone?!” His voice is laced with desperation.

She falters. The weight of the world bows her shoulders once again.

“Anything but this.”

“I am _ not _going to sit and wait for our destruction!” He takes a step towards her. She backs away out of his reach. His face falls.

“No… this is not the way. I know it. The price we’ll pay will be too high.”

“We don’t know that!”

He takes another step, and she backs away yet again.

“My love…” His voice softens, losing its imperious tone. He is pleading, his shoulders slumping. “You are in a fragile state. I beg you… think about it rationally. You know I have investigated every other possible avenue!”

She rears at his words.

“_ Fragile _?” Her voice a low growl, fury upon her like a thunderclap. “Fragile?! How dare you ever talk to me this way!”

She rips away her crimson mask and shatters it against the marble floor. Audible gasps come from the onlookers, shocked and bewildered. Hades is frozen in place, staring in disbelief.

“Enough! If you think me so _ fragile _, then I am unfit to be the High Legatus. Do what you wish, Architect. But I will not be a part of it.”

She turns on her heel, robes swishing. The cowl flies backward from the motion, letting her hair flow free.

“Persephone!!”

But she is walking fast, throwing the grand double doors open with force, and descends the stairs under the bloody light of their dying star.

He does not follow.

Ethereal golden light washes over them. The darkness parted. She doesn’t feel the burning presence of Light within her.

But her eyes are stinging, her heart is twisting in knots, her soul, though healed is threatening to burst asunder.

Emet-Selch slowly reaches up to cover the gaping hole in his stomach. The motion makes her gasp.

The waking nightmare continues, and she can’t escape the hollowness in her heart. Millions are dead. Millions are dead because she couldn’t stop him. The guilt is eating her from within.

And yet she weeps for the pain he himself must feel for causing this calamity. _ If _he is capable of feeling anything after what his God has done to him.

Hythlodaeus puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“It’s out of our hands now.”

“I hate this…” She whispers, looking at the crowd of desperate people gathered around them. “I hate doing this…”

_ But there is no other way. _

“Don’t let them know.” Her friend says quietly and gives her a slight push forward. She takes a step, and then another. Putting a foot in front of the other foot, and the altar is approaching far too soon.

“Zodiark has done irreparable damage to the star.” Her voice is even, not betraying even a hint of desperation and pain boiling right under the surface of her composed facade. “The sacrifices he demands are far too great.”

A murmur of agreement passes amongst the survivors.

“If we are to have any hope of restoring balance, there must be a counterweight to his power. And thus, I have gathered you here today, to let forth our hope for a better future to take form. Not as a desperate bid to save ourselves from destruction. For that is far too late. No.”

She looks up, at the darkness that swallowed the stars. Noxious air makes it hard to take a deep breath, to keep her voice loud enough for the gathered people to hear.

“It is my hope to see this star survive for a better tomorrow. For whoever would come to inhabit this world after we are gone. For life to continue, under the light.”

Hot tears run down her cheeks, and her arms cradle her swollen belly in a futile attempt to defend her unborn child. _ Their _child.

“I implore you to lend me your strength.” Her breath catches in her throat. “For those we have lost. For those we can yet save.”

Aether of thousand hopes rushes into her like an ocean current. She calls forth the image in her mind. Light made manifest. Not to overpower or overcome. To preserve. To balance. The lack of it is what has gotten them here in the first place.

A counterweight, a Light to his Darkness. To sunder the strength the dark God has accrued, gorging on her people’s lives, to bring about the peace they had once known.

“I name thee…”

She had thought long and hard as to what name to give this incarnation of hope. In the end, only one option seemed fitting.

The name they wanted to bestow upon their daughter.

“... Hydaelyn.”

A pillar of light shoots into the sky, piercing the darkness cloaking the world. Her soul tempered and calmed in the gentle embrace of the Goddess, she lets out a sigh of relief. It had worked. It had...

“Persephone!”

She spins around. They found them. But they are too late.

Hades, her Hades, is standing in front of the other members of the Council, his face a mask of horror as the sky blossoms in the aurora of colors.

“What have you done?..”

She opens her mouth to speak, but

the space is carnivorous. time is a lie. gravity turns liquid. Darkness and Light a clashing together inside and around the star, and it is too late to stop them.

Terror finally overtakes her. Her anger and frustration forgotten, she runs to him as the earth itself vaporizes beneath her feet and the air is as viscous as molasses. 

“Hades!”

She reaches for him, and he for her.

The star **cracks** and splits asunder like a hatching egg.

He takes off his hood and looks at her. She can feel how much willpower it takes him to keep himself together. Yet his face is serene as he studies her soul.

She rushes to him and holds him in a tight embrace. He doesn’t have the strength to even lift his arms, his aether flickering and dying.

“I remember it all, Hades…”

She buries her face in his neck and breathes in his scent.

“Will you be able to forgive me?..” She mumbles against his skin.

She lessens her hold and looks into his face. A tear is creeping down his cheek, even as he smiles gently.

“Forgiven eons ago, my love… All I did… All I did was for you. To bring you back to me…”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

He presses his forehead against hers and sighs.

“Remember us…”

A strangled cry escapes her as she feels him fading.

“Remember what we once were…”

She cradles his face in trembling hands and presses a kiss against his cool lips. She feels him smile.

With his last strength, he embraces her back. His will runs out, and he breaks apart into oblivion, leaving her behind. Tears stream down her face, and she curses the cruel gods that made them stand against one another.

“I will remember… forever and ever, and nothing in the world will change my love for you...”

_ Persephone… _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I've made you cry. But this had to be written.
> 
> The confession scene is very much inspired by the actual confession the love of my own life made (or attempted to make) when he was trying to tell me that he loved me.
> 
> Do let me know what you think... this has been difficult to write. I'd appreciate your feedback.


End file.
